


Beyond and Behind

by Metallic_Sweet



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Canon Compliant, Classic Mode Mechanics (Fire Emblem), Dancer Ferdinand von Aegir, Espionage, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Food Issues, Hunters & Hunting, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sex Toys, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-05
Updated: 2020-04-05
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23497717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metallic_Sweet/pseuds/Metallic_Sweet
Summary: From the shade, Hubert watches Ferdinand swim.Related toTime in the Countrybut may be read as stand-alone.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 20
Kudos: 176





	Beyond and Behind

**♠** _beyond these walls / where the green grass grows_

During the war, Hubert watched Ferdinand cook. 

Even now, Hubert is not entirely sure how Ferdinand knows how to cook. He is more familiar with the activity than to have learned it from reading or from the scattered lessons Byleth put them all through in Garreg Mach’s kitchens. Ferdinand knows how to handle a stove as well as he does an oven, and he is more than able to cook over an open flame when they travel. He knows how to gut and descale fish, and he is a good butcher of small game. 

These are not skills an Adestrian noble would know. The level of Ferdinand’s competency would have been considered crude by the sensibilities of the pre-war court. The type of cooking Ferdinand excels in is geared towards travel and immediate nourishment over delicate texture and taste. Only the baking he enjoys in Enbarr’s kitchens crosses into noble and courtly. Hubert had assumed, for longer than he should have, that the baking was to catch a lover’s interest. It took him an embarrassing amount of time to realise how small those thoughts were. 

The first time Hubert watched Ferdinand cook:

“You seem surprised.” 

It was summer. They had been traveling since before sunrise through Ogma, and provisions were thin. Ferdinand had shot one of the ducks that Hubert flushed out of the swampy brush with a weak Miasma. He watched Ferdinand pluck and clean the duck in the weak, muddy river with only his hands and one of Hubert’s knives as the campfire came up to heat. 

“I am,” Hubert said as Ferdinand used their kit’s spoon to pour the duck’s fat back over the roast. “I didn’t see you cook during the war.” 

Ferdinand did not look up from his work, but his brow furrowed. At the time, Hubert did not understand why. He was still too surprised that Ferdinand could do this at all. 

Two years later, as Ferdinand drove his sword through Solon, Hubert would come to understand his error. 

Then:

“We traveled with others who could cook better,” Ferdinand said, inspecting the colour of the roast; this close to the open flame and in the summer heat, sweat beaded on his brow. “This is not going to be particularly good, but it is foolhardy to eat these raw.”

Hubert watched him pick up one the mushrooms that they had found beneath the shade of the trees and brush. He inspected the white fungus for a long moment, even though Hubert had told him these are safe to eat. Hubert waited, unsure what exactly Ferdinand was thinking. After a long pause, Ferdinand picked up the same knife he had used to clean the duck. He cut the mushrooms in half in his hand, adding them around the pan after reinspecting each half again. 

It was a delicious meal. Much more to Hubert’s liking than he expected. The strong meat and the crackling fat and the denseness of the mushrooms filled his stomach pleasantly and made him feel sated and focused. Ferdinand ate his share, a faint frown on his face even as he swallowed the last bite. Hubert had to assume it was to do with the mushrooms, even though that made little sense. Ferdinand had nothing against mushrooms. 

In the years that followed, this memory repeated with other ducks. With chickens, squirrels, rats, rabbits. Mushrooms and tree fungus and little nuts and weeds and foraged greens. The meals were good and needed for their long hunts against Those Who Slither in the Dark. 

On a dark night with a slivered moon, Hubert admitted he hated tree fungus. He hated the texture and the faint sliminess it left on his teeth. He hated the feeling of pulling the wrinkled pieces from tree trunks, and the squish of the black and brown folds beneath his fingertips. It reminded him of human ears and nostrils. 

Curled into his side, Ferdinand breathed in against the shell of Hubert’s left ear. 

“I hate hunting,” he said, and there was such a desolate note in his voice that Hubert couldn’t help but turn to him and press their foreheads together. “I hate it for sport, and I hate it even for this. It feels arrogant and wasteful. But we need nutrition. Meat is dense and good for us. We do not know when we will eat or sleep. Carrying rations is impractical. And I…” 

He breathed out. Not a sigh. 

Hubert looked up at the moon. 

It was very quiet. 

**♥** _the river runs clean / over slippery stones_

The weather is mild in Ordelia. 

Hubert, sitting in the shade of a small grove of trees, watches Ferdinand swim in the lake. He is a pleasant sight and somewhat entertaining. There is no one else around, so Ferdinand is able to swim naked. He swims up and down steam, stopping only to paddle to the bank where his discarded clothes sit and blow his nose on his handkerchief. 

Hubert has been here for just under two months. Following Ferdinand’s arrival, he has been better. Not by much, but enough. He goes outside with Ferdinand, who cannot keep indoors, and he sits and watches Ferdinand run around or swim or generally be a busybody. On days when the breeze from the south is stronger, Hubert even finds himself shedding his mage overcoat to keep from overheating. He never did that in the war. 

“Blegh,” Ferdinand hacks before he hoists himself upright and snorts a large amount of mucus onto the riverbank.

He shakes himself off of excess water like a dog. He sneezes, stands up straight, and spends a handful of seconds rubbing his nose and snuffling in the back of his hand. 

Hubert wonders, with no small amount of bafflement, why even now he finds Ferdinand attractive. 

“Blegh,” Ferdinand coughs again, although noticeably less phlegmy; he turns towards Hubert, still rubbing his nose and using his left hand to push his dripping hair out of his eyes. “Hubie, gimme your handkerchief.” 

Hubert shifts. His knees and hips feel stiff. He takes a moment to get carefully to his feet, focusing on the grassy ground. Ferdinand shifts as well, snorting yet again and making flapping noises with his arms. Likely flicking off more water and mucus. 

“You don’t,” Hubert says as he straightens and fishes out his handkerchief from his inner tunic’s folds, “make swimming seem very pleasant.” 

“Swimming is excellent,” Ferdinand says, rubbing his nose with his right hand and grabbing the handkerchief with his left as Hubert comes into arm’s reach. “It just makes my nose run something awful.” 

“I can see,” Hubert says as Ferdinand blows his nose like a herald’s horn. “And hear.” 

“Hah hah,” Ferdinand says, very sarcastically before sniffing, turning his head to the side, and spitting into the grassy dirt. “Ugh.” 

Hubert watches him fold the handkerchief over and blow his nose again. The slight wrinkle between his brows and his wet, dripping hair is incredibly undignified. Next to Hubert, still dressed the majority of his mage robes, Ferdinand’s nakedness is a stark contrast. His skin is a patchwork of raised and pitted scars from weapons and magic, splattered over his arms and legs with little freckles. The dancer’s uniform provided little protection from injury let alone the sun. 

It makes sense, Hubert supposes as he bends down to pick up the bathing linen they brought with them, that Ferdinand has little left in the way of body shyness. 

He unfolds the linen as Ferdinand finally inhales easily. Takes a handful of Ferdinand’s hair and pushes it away from his back. He rubs over Ferdinand’s shoulders, careful when he passes over the sensitive raised scar just below the knob of his left shoulder. The skin looks calm now, but Hubert is well aware that sometimes it flares up and itches in pins and needles. 

Ferdinand threads his fingers through his hair, picking out a few bits of debris and muck as Hubert dries him off. He leans down for the hairbrush they had brought along, and Hubert concentrates on drying his lower back. Ferdinand straightens. Hubert shifts around to dry his chest as he begins brushing his hair. 

Ferdinand’s stomach growls. 

“Hush,” Ferdinand grumbles as he works at a knot with the brush.

“Am I so delicious?” Hubert says, without thinking.

Ferdinand snorts in surprise. He is still a bit congested, and Hubert only just manages to dodge the worst of the spray. Ferdinand laughs as he rubs his nose, the brush still in his hair. 

“Hubie,” he teases as Hubert uses a dry patch of the linen to wipe off his face. “Are you going to audition for Dorothea’s next opera?” 

The next opera is _The Amorous Painter and the Model_ , an ever popular two-act comedy that Hubert secretly does enjoy because the lyrics are particularly clever. He suspects the choice to make it the season opener, which Hubert as the Minister of the Interior is expected to attend, means his enjoyment is not a secret any longer. Either Edelgard or Ferdinand must have tattled. 

The season is set to open in three months. Hubert does expect to be back in Enbarr by then. 

He has been in House Ordelia for nearly seven weeks now. 

“You know I do not sing,” Hubert murmurs, looking down to begin drying Ferdinand again. “And I am no dancer.” 

“You are not so terrible at dancing,” Ferdinand says, a note of wonder in his voice as he starts back on his hair. “Are you actually considering auditioning? I was teasing, but –”

“I do not want to audition,” Hubert says, more to the towel than to anything else. “Shift your legs.”

“You should!” Ferdinand says, moving his feet so that Hubert can easily dry his hips and between his thighs; his member does not stir, used to being touched like this. “I am sure Dorothea would be thrilled to have you as part of the intermezzo! It could be masked, and you would not have to speak nor sing. No one would have to know it is you. Why, then I would audition as well! It is a brilliant idea, Hubie. Please, you must audition now.” 

Hubert can feel his cheeks heating. He is glad that he is bent over to dry Ferdinand’s knees rather than bearing the full brunt of that bright eagerness. 

Even after so many years, Hubert sometimes fears his eyes will burn out if he looks upon Ferdinand for too long. 

“I will not make a mockery of our stations,” he says as Ferdinand lifts his right foot to allow Hubert to dry it. 

“It will not make a mockery of our stations,” Ferdinand scoffs, clearly smiling as he switches feet. “It will please our Emperor –”

Hubert pinches the back of Ferdinand’s heel, earning a yelp but no flinch or kick. Ferdinand returns his dry foot to the ground, and Hubert has no other choice than to look up. 

The way Ferdinand looks at him: 

“Let us audition together,” Ferdinand says as Hubert stands up.

The sun is climbing high in the sky. Ferdinand’s hair, partially over his shoulder, partially in his hand with the brush, and still messy, looks almost vermillion. His eyes are open and wide and Hubert _loves_ him so much. 

“Hubie,” Ferdinand says as Hubert steps forward, against the press of his lips, “please?”

“Fine,” Hubert breathes. “Kiss me.”

Ferdinand breathes out. Soundless and pleased. 

The kiss is strong and sure and very sweet.

**♦** _the ages of the world / rub them clean_

During the war, the worst part was the quiet. 

Hubert does not know what Ferdinand’s life was like before they met in Garreg Mach. They had met before that, of course. Ferdinand was too young when Hubert was presented at court at ten, but Hubert was by his father’s side when Ferdinand was presented to Ionius just shy of his tenth birthday. Hubert had registered Ferdinand, not yet out of shorts, and with the high, carrying voice of a child, as little more than the probable heir of the hated Duke Aegir. 

At the academy, Ferdinand’s voice was no longer high-pitched, but it was loud and carrying, and all the words that escaped his lips either infuriated or grated upon Hubert. His insipid rivalry with Edelgard worsened Hubert’s opinion, and his busybody nature made Hubert consider strangling him out of frustration. Even after they became better towards each other, Hubert often wished Ferdinand would be quiet. Not permanently. Just more often.

By the time Hubert noticed his wish had come true, it was too late. 

It is impossible to pinpoint when exactly the quiet settled in. During the five years that Byleth was missing and they were fighting the war in and out of the shadows, both Hubert and Ferdinand only had so much time to spare each other. Hubert stayed close to Edelgard, and they had to do the bidding of Solon to hold against Rhea. Ferdinand spent most of his time between Aegir, Enbarr, and the fraught Bridge of Myrddin. He was close to Lorenz and Lysithea for those ventures, and he and Hubert shared a bed in Enbarr, but when he returned to Aegir, Ferdinand was on his own. 

Hubert guesses that is when the quiet began. He only noticed its permeance, though, when Lysithea began to fail. Edelgard stopped leaving Enbarr, and Linhardt came without being requested in a desperate attempt to speed up her and Hanneman’s Crest research. Byleth returned with Mercedes from Fhirdiad in a futile attempt to use their blood. Hubert could not leave Edelgard for long, so Ferdinand went alone after leads on Those Who Slithered in the Dark. He travelled as light as possible, often without a horse or wyvern, and came back battered and very tired. 

He never complained. It was necessary. Hubert saw him off and welcomed him back at the mouth of the passages beneath Enbarr’s surface. Ferdinand would always smile, even when he came back more bruises and open wounds than anything else. 

“It is good to see you, Hubie,” he would say, soft and earnest even the terrible time he returned clearly struggling under poison and blinking owlishly in daylight. “How is Lysithea?” 

_How are you?_ Hubert would almost ask.

_We ask too much of you,_ he would almost say. 

“The same,” he would answer until, inevitably, all Hubert could do was shake his head. 

Ferdinand stared at him. 

The silence was deafening.

**♣** _of all these troubling things / behind these walls_

Ferdinand’s rooms are in the southern part of the House. 

They overlook the stables and the main gates. It is a noisier location, but Ferdinand wakes before the sun and spends very little time in his rooms. Unlike Hubert, Ferdinand is allowed full reign of the House and its grounds, including the library and the graveyard. Hubert isn’t sure if Ferdinand has gone to Lysithea’s grave, but he has gone to the library. He brings Hubert new books, mostly about pegasi and wyvern husbandry and a couple of pamphlets of bizarrely entertaining Morfis poetry. 

On the days that Hubert struggles to leave his room on his own, Ferdinand comes to him after Manuela’s visit in the late morning. He brings the lunch tray and the books that he is reading. Most of his reading is agricultural treatises, taxation records, and his latest pet interest in pre-Fódlan battle formations, which Hubert is surprised House Ordelia has so many books on. Hubert allows himself to take comfort in the warmth of Ferdinand’s body as he murmurs the words in the text beneath his breath like an incantation. 

By reading aloud, Ferdinand commits everything to memory like magic. Listening to Ferdinand’s soft, wispy murmuring, Hubert’s eyes slide closed. His heart calms. His breathing eases. Evens. 

He sleeps and does not dream. 

They have not discussed it, but Hubert knows Ferdinand has been seeing Manuela as well. Not about Hubert, which is a bit of a relief. They do not keep anything from each other because there is no point. They entrusted their lives and their integrity to each other. They take responsibility for each other’s actions. It was how they could fight in the war, and it kept them from baulking against things they still cannot fathom. 

Because of this, Hubert does have a guess to why Ferdinand has been talking with her. It likely has to do with food, which is the main issue disturbing Ferdinand’s day to day life. In the war, they had sufficed with what was at their disposal, and they all got used to checking food and drink for poison. It became commonplace for Ferdinand to cook for himself, Hubert, and Edelgard in the kitchens in Enbarr. Hubert assumes that, when Ferdinand returns for business in Aegir, he also cooks for himself. During the warm months, he returns from Aegir with jars of apple butter and berry preserves he made himself.

It would seem sweet if not for the impracticality. Cooking takes time, which Ferdinand does not often have to spare, especially since the end of the war when they should have all concentrated more upon governing and rebuilding Fódlan. Ferdinand has taken to waking earlier to prepare meals for the day for going to run his horse. Hubert, as he had descended deeper into his own mind, had grown used to waking disoriented and cold without Ferdinand’s warmth. 

His dislike of hunting has also become more obvious. Edelgard and Hubert both enjoy falconry and pigeon shooting, which is the only activities Ferdinand declines to participate in with them. He tolerated them for a few years, but he has declined their invitations for the past year even though these are Edelgard’s sole leisure activities. It was not surprising, but Hubert knows Edelgard has missed Ferdinand on their excursions. 

“Perhaps if we gave him more notice,” she had said the last time they had gone falconing. “I know he dislikes waste and sport hunting, but you and I are not half as good at preparing game. He could start dough for pies ahead of time and go riding or something while we hunt.” 

“Pies?” Hubert asked, rather dumbly.

“Hubert,” Edelgard said, rather scandalised as she took the hood off her goshawk, “you’ve been eating Ferdinand’s cooking for years! Haven’t you noticed his pies are particularly good? They have gotten even better since we finished building the new bridge for heavy transport in Galatea. Sylvain has been sending butter as well as cheese.” 

Hubert had not been well enough to come up with a good response. He had not realised Edelgard now had a taste for meat pies. Before the war, she had hated them, especially in the ever popular Garreg Mach style. Ferdinand makes a good number of pies because they keep and travel well, and most food blends together in Hubert’s memory. He could not tell his usual lie that he cared little for food because Edelgard has full awareness of his preferences for both meat and spice. All Hubert could do was nod awkwardly as her goshawk swooped down upon a rabbit with a triumphant cry. 

Edelgard frowned at him. Hubert realised he might have a real problem. 

Reflecting upon this, nearly four months later, Hubert realises he has been unkind. He also suspects that he overlooked many things outside of himself as his thoughts ate away at his greater awareness. Edelgard and he have become painfully remote towards each other, unable to broach personal subjects they had begun to make progress upon over the past few years. He knows his friendship with both Bernadetta and Dorothea is strained for the same reasons. It is difficult and humbling to realise these things. 

It is humbling to the point of humiliating that Hubert has overlooked aspects of Ferdinand. They have shared a bed for the better part of seven years, and they have killed for and beside each other. Ferdinand generally trusts food if Edelgard, Hubert, Bernadetta, or Dorothea bring it to him, but communal meals after the scattering of the Black Eagles Strike Force are rare. Hubert is not entirely sure because of his own recent lack of awareness, but he suspects that it makes some of Ferdinand’s public duties awkward if not difficult to avoid eating and drinking for long periods of time. 

Ferdinand has excellent endurance, but no one is immune to their own follies. 

“Hubie,” Ferdinand’s voice filters in through his doze, low and so soft it would not wake him if he was deeply asleep, “if you are awake, I am thirsty.” 

Hubert hums. Shifts so that Ferdinand can slide off the bed. Hubert opens his eyes to watch Ferdinand go to the lunch tray and the cooled hot water pitcher. He pours himself water into his empty teacup, drinking a few sips as he looks out the window. At this angle, the sun throws into relief the fading scar from Edelgard’s grieving strike along the line of his jaw. In a year or so, it will be gone completely. 

They hold no ill-will towards each other for that. In a way, as Edelgard allowed herself to grieve publically for the first time and Ferdinand shielded everyone but Hubert from his own grief, it brought them closer. They trust each other now as they never did before.

Ferdinand turns. He looks to Hubert as he sets his half-drunk cup back on the tray. Tilts his head slightly to match Hubert, who is still lying on the blanket and bedding, his head half on and half off his pillow. 

He smiles. 

Light and warm and amused.

“You look thoughtful,” he says, reaching out to pick up one of the leftover cherry tomatoes from lunch and holding it out playfully. “Tomato for your thoughts?”

Hubert snorts. He rolls back slightly to get his head fully on the pillow and opens his mouth, if only because Ferdinand’s smile widens and brightens. He rejoins Hubert on the bed. Places the tomato on Hubert’s tongue. Hubert closes his lips just before Ferdinand can pull away. He catches the tips of his fingers between his lips and the tomato between his teeth.

Ferdinand laughs, exactly the reaction Hubert hoped to gain. 

“Are these your thoughts?” Ferdinand asks as Hubert closes his teeth on the tomato, Ferdinand’s fore and middle fingertips still between his lips, the blunt of his nails occasionally knocked by Hubert’s front teeth. “Hubie, if you are hungry, you only have to ask.” 

Hubert swallows the tomato. Sucks momentarily on Ferdinand’s fingertips. When he parts his lips, Ferdinand blinks. His fingers rest on Hubert’s lower lip. The gaze he offers is very focused and equally questioning. 

“Do you…?” 

There is a note there. It lights something in Hubert that only Ferdinand has reached. Deep in his chest. 

He breathes out. In.

Ferdinand is already climbing to frame his hips. Leaning down. His eyes are open and bright and Hubert –

“Kiss me.”

Ferdinand beams with his lips, his teeth, his entire face, and descends. 

**●** _o, my love, I will meet you / where the green grass grows_

The way Ferdinand kisses:

He kisses like he is tasting. Hubert tilts his head back on the pillow to give him better access to his neck. Ferdinand hums. A deep, pleased sound. This is Ferdinand’s favourite part of Hubert to kiss. He breathes deep, moving his lips slowly, wetly as he sucks and worries the skin over Hubert’s pulse. It makes Hubert breathe deep. Deeper. A long gasp. 

“Yes,” he says, tightening his fingers in the hair over the base of Ferdinand’s scalp and pulling. “Bite me.” 

A dark and happy noise. Hubert feels Ferdinand’s teeth against his skin, sliding apart as he opens his jaw. Hubert’s heart thuds in his ears. His lower belly and groin heat and burn. He pulls harder on Ferdinand’s hair. 

“Bite,” Hubert says, commands, begs. 

Pain. Just west of unpleasant. Ferdinand makes a noise deep in his chest, his teeth pressing against the flesh and pulse in Hubert’s neck. Hubert can hear more than feel how he whimpers in high, breathy notes. The closest he gets to singing. 

He knows how Ferdinand loves it. 

“Ferdie,” Hubert says, and his voice is weak but alive and needy, “yes, please, I need you –”

Ferdinand growls. He releases his hold on Hubert’s neck. Raises his head. His eyes –

“Hubie,” he says, and Hubert would go to war all over again for the pure and utter love he feels for what Ferdinand offers him in his own name, “I have missed you.” 

It is chaos after that. Ferdinand straightens on his knees to undress himself with no finesse. Hubert surges up to help, his neck smarting in a way that makes him feel like he is becoming a beast. They tear Ferdinand’s sleeve ribbons, and it makes them both laugh too loudly. They do not care. 

“Touch me,” Ferdinand says as Hubert tugs angrily at his trouser buttons. “I want your hands on me now –”

“It is your fault for wearing so many pieces!” Hubert snarls, finally getting a few buttons through their loops to yank the rest open and let Ferdinand shuck his legs out. “You’re a Dancer, you do not need so much clothing!”

Ferdinand barks a laugh as he tosses his trousers on the floor. “So you would have me wear that indecent uniform to court?” 

“Or nothing at all,” Hubert says because it is true, and he wants to hear Ferdinand laugh again.

“Then all would know,” Ferdinand crows as he undoes his small clothes and is finally naked, “you are nothing but a debauched, lecherous man who loves nothing better than to lie back and stick me with your cock.”

“And they would all stare,” Hubert growls, reaching out to grasp Ferdinand’s hips as he moves closer to push up Hubert’s mage robes to reveal his cock straining in his trousers, “and know how eager you are to take my cock.” 

“And they would be envious,” Ferdinand agrees, boasting and bright and burning, his hands opening Hubert’s trousers and ripping through the thin material of his modesty cloth, “especially once they know your cock is so very good to take.” 

Embarrassingly, this makes Hubert’s cock jump and seemingly preen for him. Ferdinand laughs, completely devoid of cruelty and very full of pleasure, and wraps his hand around the base to squeeze.

“Don’t worry, Hubie,” he says, lightly teasing as Hubert grits his teeth to try to regain some self-control. “I am loose. You won’t have to wait long.” 

“What,” Hubert chokes, thrown out of their earlier play by surprise. “How did you –”

“Hubie,” Ferdinand says, a little more exasperated as he begins to rub his thumb around the weeping head of Hubert’s cock, “you know I enjoy masturbating. We haven’t had sex in nine weeks, I have to put _something_ in regularly or I’ll –”

“I can’t believe you,” Hubert says, a bit garbled as Ferdinand collects more precum to begin slicking down his cock. “You barely travel with anything personal and yet you brought a dildo with you?”

“Don’t be like that,” Ferdinand whines, even as his smile turns wicked again as he dutifully works Hubert’s cock into wetness. “It has been _nine_ weeks that I have been missing your cock. Give this Ferdinand von Aegir credit where it is due. I bought a plug.” 

Hubert yanks Ferdinand forward without realising himself. Ferdinand laughs at him, loudly and freely, and Hubert cannot even feel annoyed. He reaches between Ferdinand’s legs. His fingers slide along muscle and flesh and coarse hair before he finds the metal base of the plug sat wide and snugly in Ferdinand’s hole. Hubert holds his fore and middle fingertips over it, lifting his gaze to find Ferdinand looking down at him. White teeth, red lips, flushed teeth, and ruinously wicked. 

“You bastard,” Hubert says through a mouthful of spit.

“I am the natural born Duke Aegir,” Ferdinand says before lowering himself against Hubert’s fingers and groaning as he makes the plug shift within himself. “Now, will Marquis von Vesta lend me his hand, or will I have to take it myself?”

“Are you accusing me of neglect?” Hubert asks, adjusting his hand to get a grip on the plug’s base and earning a flutter of Ferdinand’s eyelashes and stuttering gasp. “You wouldn’t be wrong.”

Ferdinand blinks at him, clearly taken aback even as Hubert gives the plug an experimental twist. The combination of emotion and sensation makes Ferdinand lean forward to brace himself on his hands and knees, something that usually doesn’t happen for a while yet when they play like this. His cock, swollen and bobbing, hangs between them and drips on the rucked up fabric of Hubert’s robes. He breathes out in a shuddering breath, blinking down at Hubert and searching his face in surprise and wonder. 

“I have neglected you,” Hubert says, changing the direction of his twisting and watching how Ferdinand’s eyes squeeze briefly shut on the pleasure. “You wouldn’t have had to buy something like this otherwise. Did you have to embarrass yourself with Dorothea? Ask her for her favourite makers?” 

“You—uhgh—underestimate Bernadetta,” Ferdinand gets out; Hubert, through his own shock, does have the sensibility to not still his twisting. “She knows best about solo toys.” 

Hubert would laugh, but then he might also choke. The shrinking part of him that is still capable of other thoughts than the growing urgency of getting the toy out and his cock in Ferdinand’s ass is absolutely mortified that Bernadetta is privy to Ferdinand’s and therefore Hubert’s proclivities. Between the two of them, Ferdinand enjoys being on the receiving end much more and has the physical strength for more interesting manuveurs, but they are both keen on toys and anal play in general. Bernadetta has doubtlessly figured this out. 

If she uses this for fuel for one of the erotic tales she writes under a pseudonym –

“Hubie,” Ferdinand groans as Hubert tugs the toy outwards, “if you don’t put your cock in me in the next minute –”

“I am not going to hurt you,” Hubert says, which in any context might be the most ridiculous thing he could ever say. 

This is not lost on Ferdinand. He laughs, breathy and amused, head dipping to rest low between his shoulders as Hubert works the widest part of the plug out of him. He is beautiful like this, lips full and parted through heavy breaths, chest and stomach contracting as Hubert eases the plug out. It is not particularly long, but it is wide. Hubert moves it up to look at as Ferdinand arches his back and groans through his teeth. 

“You thought this through,” Hubert says.

He turns enough to put the oil-damp metal on his bedside table. He has to be careful not to let it roll into his most recent book. There is a lot of oil, and it would ruin the paper and ink.

“Your cock is the only part of you wider than your ego,” Ferdinand says, more than a little breathless and flushed from his cheeks down to his upper chest; Hubert turns his full attention back to him in time to watch Ferdinand reach down and take hold of Hubert’s leaking cock. “I feared if I went too long, I would never be able to fit you back in me.”

“Fuck,” is all Hubert can say.

“Anytime now,” Ferdinand says brightly as he secures his grip on Hubert’s cock, positions himself against the tip, and sits with practiced ease. 

Hubert sees stars. 

It is not like being struck by lightning. Hubert knows that well enough from Thunder and Thoron and Bolting. It is heat and slick and tight, despite and because of the fact that Ferdinand more than adequately prepared himself. Above him, Ferdinand groans, his hips shifting as he clenches around Hubert. He is able to take most of Hubert. He shifts to his knees, steadying his left hand on Hubert’s lower chest and gripping around what of Hubert’s cock he cannot quite fit in to steady them. 

Ferdinand really is incredible. 

“Yes,” he moans, almost ecstatic, before he begins to move. 

Hubert can barely focus. He reaches up partly out of practice and partly by instinct and manages to grasp a handful of Ferdinand’s hair with his right hand and rest his left on Ferdinand’s thigh. He can feel the hard muscles working beneath his fingers and palm as Ferdinand lifts and lowers himself, finding the angle he wants the head of Hubert’s cock to hit and holding tight to the base to prevent Hubert from coming. His cock bounces, precum splattering them both, his balls slapping against Hubert’s groin with each descent. 

He is bright and burning and –

“Ferdie,” Hubert breathes, wretched and needy and amazed, “I want you to come on me.”

“Sure,” Ferdinand breathes and he rams himself down on Hubert’s cock, shudders, convulses, and comes in large spurts all over Hubert’s ruined robes. 

Hubert makes a noise that is too loud and too honest, but he does not care. Ferdinand jerks his hips a few times, more cum leaking out of his cock. Hubert shifts his hands to catch against Ferdinand’s sides as he tips forward, his hand loosening on Hubert’s cock. There is a rushing, twisting, _burning_ and Hubert comes suddenly and intensely and messily in Ferdinand with a high-pitched cry. 

Ferdinand barely manages to hold himself up long enough for Hubert to stop spasming in him before his arms give out. His weight is heavy but reassuring over Hubert’s chest, stomach, and shoulders. They breathe heavily, deep, slowly calming gasps, still joined with Hubert’s cock in Ferdinand’s leaking ass. 

“Hubie,” Ferdinand says as their breathing evens out.

“Ferdie,” Hubert whispers.

They shift. Ferdinand presses a kiss to the mark he made on Hubert’s neck. Hubert curls his arms around Ferdinand’s back. A hug. A reassurance. A shield. 

They are safe together. 

They breathe.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to connect with me on [Twitter @Metallic_Sweet](https://twitter.com/Metallic_Sweet)!


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